1. Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to a network management system, and in particular to a network management system and method for obtaining and setting the configuration information of a plurality of managed objects that are network elements.
2. Description of the Related Art
In general, a network management system preferably employs a hierarchical management strategy to efficiently manage a network composed of a number of network elements including modems, terminals, transmission devices, switches and the like. Actually, the network elements are managed by using virtual managed-object data instances, which are hierarchically organized into a tree structure for network management. Using such a tree structure, the network operator can easily identify each managed object to perform desired access processing such as setting of necessary information and collection of management information.
A management information storage device which is designed to reduce the number of retrieval operations has been disclosed in Japanese Patent Unexamined Publication No. 5-191407. The number of retrieval operations for each managed object is counted. If the number of retrieval operations for a managed object exceeds a predetermined value, then the identification name of that managed object is registered. When a management application requests the retrieval operation of the registered managed object, the registered information of that managed object is sent directly to a management interface without the intervention of the management application. This causes the number of retrieval operations for the managed object that has been accessed at frequent intervals to be lowered, resulting in the reduced burden on the management application.
In the case where a managed object includes a plurality of child objects of its own, however, it is necessary for an operator terminal to get access to each of the child objects included in the targeted managed object based on the tree structure, resulting in the increased amount of communications between the operator terminal and a management system.
Further, in the case where a new network element is added to the network, the conventional management system cannot handle such a change dynamically because the management operator must create a managed-object instance for that added network element using the tree information.
An object of the present invention is to provide a network management method and system which enables obtaining access to a managed object including a plurality of child objects to obtain and set the configuration information thereof with the reduced number of communication steps.
According to an aspect of the present invention, a method for managing a network composed of a plurality of managed objects using managed-object instances which are hierarchically organized in inclusion relation, includes the steps of: a) receiving an access request to a designated managed-object instance from a manger, the designated managed-object instance corresponding to a certain managed object in the network; b) recursively creating a processing object for accessing a managed object included in the designated manage object based on the inclusion relation; c) recursively returning information obtained by a lower-level processing object to a higher-level processing object based on the inclusion relation; and d) returning a collection of information received by the designated managed-object instance to the manager.
A processing object is recursively created to collect necessary information by distributed data processing and the collected information is sent back to the network manager. Therefore, the number of communication transactions between the network manager and the network management system is dramatically reduced, resulting in the improved performance of the network.
According to another aspect of the present invention, a method includes the steps of: a) detecting addition of a network element device to the network; b) creating a managed-object instance corresponding to the network element device; c) creating a processing object corresponding to the network element device, wherein the processing object recursively creates a child processing object for accessing a component included in the network element device; d) recursively returning information obtained by a lower-level processing object to a higher-level processing object based on the inclusion relation; e) storing a collection of information received by the processing object onto the managed-object instance to add the network element device as a managed object to the network; and f) reporting the addition of the network element device to a network manager.
When a new network element device is connected to the network, a processing object for the network element device obtains the configuration information of the components of the network element device to automatically create a managed-object instance therefor. Therefore, an easy management operation can be achieved.